If the barriers to Asian-Americans were removed, the next year there would be fewer students in those courses. In four years many of those courses would be gone, unsustainable. This would affect not only the number of professors in departments, but their relative prestige. That would be unacceptable to them, individually and collectively. Their loss of status would be taken as evidence of sexism and racism.

6 comments:

I'm not sure the Sectarian Studies programs would dry up. The diversity industry is still growing strong, and those programs offer the credentialing needed to get the industry jobs. Some people with the appropriate intersectionality and a sufficiently abrasive personality won't need a degree, but the rest will.

Until the 50's, Harvard had first class undergraduate and graduate engineering programs. Those were shut down, and now Harvard has a graduate engineering science program, sorta. From time to time, Harvard and MIT have discussed merger (they are quite close physically), but the cultures are too distinct. The engineering culture is probably why Harvard shut it down in the first place.

After the Revolution, a great many newly formed liberal arts colleges (viz. Union College, Schenectady) had an engineering division. Many still do. This was polemical. Engineering was emblematic of the new kind of education that emphasized science and modern languages and deemphasized the Trivium and Quadrium and Latin and all the existing European college curricula.

@ sykes - I went to William and Mary, which had excellent science departments and a good graduate program in physics, at least. I don't remember about the others. Credits in either math or science are required for all undergraduates, and even the easier versions are not that easy. (Well, maybe the math one wasn't all that hard.) But no engineering, as in the trend you noticed. I suspect that engineering does change the culture of a college, especially a small to medium-sized one.

sykesAfter the Revolution, a great many newly formed liberal arts colleges (viz. Union College, Schenectady) had an engineering division.Many still do.

Eliphalet Nott, President of Union College from 1804 until his death in 1866, spread his talents into education, the ministry, and science and technology. From Wikipedia:

As a scientist he studied heat and obtaining some thirty or more patents for applications of heat to steam engines, but was best known in his day as the inventor of the first stove for anthracite coal, which was named for him.

According to Wikipedia, about 11% of Union College students major in engineering, so the influence of Eliphalet Nott continues to this day.